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Barry Lester picked the young, 42-inch rattlesnake up, but when he did, it sunk its fangs into his skin.

First it bit his left hand, Roberta Lester told The Tulsa World. Then he put the snake in his right hand — and the snake bit him there, too.

After two bites, Barry Lester put the snake in his tool box, game warden Carlos Gomez told NewsOn6. Roberta Lewis told the newspaper he would sometimes bring snakes home to help control the mouse population, but she had no idea what his plans were for this snake.

But it was those two bites — combined with an existing heart condition — that would kill Barry Lester on his birthday.

Now, just a few days later, his wife has a message.

“My message is you don’t mess with snakes,” she said. “If you hear it rattling, you leave it alone.”

“Although death by snake bite is rare, very rare, you can get bit easily,” Gomez told NewsOn6.

Dennis Crow, 51, has never been bitten in five years hunting rattlesnakes. But he nearly succumbed to a heart attack after putting a six-foot rattler in his snake bucket while hunting near Oklahoma's Wichita Mountains.